Ecuador's Indigenous Groups Have New Power to Protect Their Lands from Destruction

[Cicada 5]

The highest court in Ecuador ruled last week that Indigenous communities in the country should have a stronger say over extractive projects like oil drilling and mining that affect their ancestral lands.

The Constitutional Court’s decision is a blow to Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, who had previously planned to expand mining operations and oil production, the New York Times reported. According to the ruling, Indigenous communities in the country can refuse an extractive project in their territories, and the government can only advance those projects under “exceptional cases,” but not if the project obviously hurts the people and wildlife in the protected territories.

Part of the court’s decision also included striking down parts of a 2019 decree under previous President Lenín Moreno, which allowed oil drilling in an area of the Amazon that is protected for isolated Indigenous groups.

“It’s by far one of the most powerful rulings that supports free, prior and informed consent to Indigenous peoples to date,” Oscar Soria, a campaign director at Avaaz, told the New York Times. “This will have enormous implications.”

Ecuador's Indigenous Groups Have New Power to Protect Their Lands from Destruction

The country's highest court ruled in favor of groups having more control in the Amazon.

gizmodo.com

 

[Buyetyen]

A good step forward.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

We'll see how meaningful that is. The last lawyer who represented Ecuadorians against oil companies had his life completely destroyed by oil companies and their friends.

 

[CM156]

Well that's a bit of good news, I suppose.

 

[Gordon_4]

At the risk of being a cynic, unless that power is something like 'Can summon Adeptus Astartes at will' or 'can become Superman' then I don't see this ruling - positive that it may be - having much effect.

 

[Agema]

At the risk of being a cynic, unless that power is something like 'Can summon Adeptus Astartes at will' or 'can become Superman' then I don't see this ruling - positive that it may be - having much effect.

It probably means that if the government attempts to push exploitation rights, they will readily face legal challenge. It will then be the courts that decide. I might suggest that the judiciary having even made this ruling in the first place suggests they might be sympathetic to the indigenous.

Either that or they're corrupt and this is a cunning plan to make them arbiters so that they can collect bribes.

 

[Gergar12]

There is a problem with the environmental activism movement, it's that the more climate change occurs, the more fossil fuel companies want to drill. This is because it's a use it or lose it problem, they know renewables, and low carbon energy is the future, and also know that drilling for, and using fossil fuels in the future would be viewed like using lead gasoline today.

No one goes out of business willingly, they do so if their costs are high or they are regulated out.